


The World Before Us

by ariel2me



Series: Inspired by Fire & Blood [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2019-08-27 09:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 14,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16699678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: A collection of drabbles and ficlets inspired by Fire & Blood.Chapter 24: Rhaena Targaryen & Baela Targaryen, dragonriding





	1. Jeyne Arryn/Jessamyn Redfort

> _Across the width of Westeros, another struggle for succession broke out late in the year 134, when Lady Jeyne Arryn, the Maiden of the Vale, died at Gulltown of a cold that had settled in her chest. Forty years of age, she perished in the Motherhouse of Maris on its stony island in the harbor of Gulltown, wrapped in the arms of Jessamyn Redfort, her “dear companion.” (Fire & Blood)_

They told the story to one another on every anniversary of their first act of coupling. Some of the details would be spiritedly contested ( _no, it certainly did not happen that way,_  one would say, while the other would insist,  _of course it did, it most certainly did_ ) or misremembered (a first kiss that lasted barely the space of two breaths became a long, lingering kiss that left them both gasping for air), but the essence of it remained the same, always.

The essence of their story, of their love and intimacy, of their bond and trust. Jeyne and Jessa. Jessa and Jeyne. The Maiden of the Vale and her more than just “dear companion.”        

“Once there was a lonely girl who lived high up the mountain, in the castle Eyrie,” Jeyne would begin.

“A nominal ruler of a great land since she was three,” Jessamyn would continue, with a grin as wide as saucer.

“It is not a song or a poem. It does not have to rhyme,” Jeyne would tease.

“My stories  _always_ rhyme,” Jessamyn would reply, with mock-outrage.  

The guardian of this lonely girl (who was also the regent and lord protector of her land during the years of her minority) brought many girls from the noble houses sworn to the Eyrie to be her companions. These girls, most of them having brothers, were expected by their families to extol and promote the virtues and attractions of those brothers in front of the lonely girl, with matrimony in mind.

“Is your brother as clever as you? As kind? As thoughtful? As gentle? As bold? As witty? As spirited? As funny?” Jeyne would ask of every girl, changing the descriptions to fit the special virtues she had observed of each girl.

“My brother would make a poor consort to the ruling Lady of the Eyrie,” Jessamyn had replied bluntly, when it was her turn to be asked the question. “He is not made to be any woman’s consort. He would want to rule  _through_  you, not  _beside_  you.”

“I will suffer no man to rule either through me or beside me, when I am of age,” vowed Jeyne.

“But you will have to suffer a husband in your bed.”

“Will I?”

“We must. Every woman must, whether she likes it or not,” said Jessamyn, with heavy resignation.

“Even if she prefers a woman in her bed?”

“Even then. This is the world we reside in, and there is no other, not while we still draw breath.”

 _Last night I dreamed of my last breath being drawn in your embrace, with your arms holding me tightly,_  thought Jeyne, the day Jessamyn left the Eyrie to be wed.  _And now that could never happen._

A husband dead of a burst belly three years later brought Jessamyn back to the Eyrie, this time as Jeyne’s lady-in-waiting. A gaggle of squabbling suitors intent on besting one another became Jeyne’s best tool for avoiding matrimony. Conflicting rumors thrived and flourished about the Maiden of the Vale. Some said that she would not wed because she would rather have _ten_  men in her bed instead of only one. Other claimed that she would not wed because she would rather have ten  _women_  in her bed instead of one man. The numbers seemed to increase with each passing year, and the supposed voraciousness of her sexual appetite became more exaggerated with each telling of the rumors.    

She would not wed because she did not wish to risk becoming a husband’s catspaw, and she had seen too many women brought down by a man’s quest for glory. She would not wed because she only wanted one woman beside her, in her bed and elsewhere, the only person in the world she trusted to share all her secrets and all her troubles.

Both of those things were equally true for Jeyne Arryn.


	2. Jeyne Arryn & Arnold Arryn

> " _Thrice have mine own kin sought to replace me,” Lady Jeyne told Prince Jacaerys. “My cousin Ser Arnold is wont to say that women are too soft to rule. I have him in one of my sky cells, if you would like to ask him.” (Fire & Blood)_
> 
> _Far closer by blood was Lady Jeyne’s first cousin, Ser Arnold Arryn, who had twice attempted to depose her. (Fire & Blood)_

“The first time you tried to incite a rebellion against me, I stripped you from your position as the Knight of the Bloody Gate, deprived you of the income I had previously granted your family to aid and honor my closest kin, and took your eldest son and your only daughter as my wards. I had assumed that you understood what  _‘wards’_ truly meant in that particular instance, but perhaps you did not.”

Arnold scoffed. “I know what it means well enough.  _Hostages_. My children are your hostages, taken to ensure my good conduct and my humble compliance.”

“They were taken to ensure your  _loyalty_  to the rightful Lady of the Eyrie, to whom you and your fellow conspirators had sworn an oath of allegiance. If you are aware that your eldest son and your only daughter are my hostages, why do you not keep to your promise never again to incite a rebellion against me, never again to try to depose me to put yourself in my place? Do you not care a whit about your children’s fate? What sort of father are you, Cousin? Do you care more about usurping my place and becoming the Lord of the Eyrie than about the well-being of your own children?”

Arnold shrugged. “I have other sons. And my daughter, well … a daughter is only a daughter after all.”  

“How thoughtful of you. How glad your children would be to learn of their father’s great love and tender care for them.”

“Sharp tongues and biting words are the weapons of the  _weak_. They are the weapons of _women_ , and women are too  _soft_  to rule.”

“Too soft to rule? Are you certain of that? Would you be willing to stake your life on it?”

“When our uncle Ronard tried to gain the lordship of the Eyrie for himself after your father’s death, Yorbert Royce your regent and lord protector at the time swiftly had his head on a spike. You are too soft, Jeyne, too soft to rule, as all women are. The fact that I have a head still to make a  _second_  attempt to depose you is proof enough of that. I know that you would not have the will or the audacity to kill my children, even if they  _are_  your hostages. You have grown fond of them, but even if you have not, even if you despise them with all your heart because of what their father has done, the murder of children is not something you are capable of.”

“You are a prisoner in my hall. Remember your place! You will address me as ‘ _my lady_ ’ and nothing else. I will remind you that our uncle plotted to have me assassinated in my bed by my own nursemaid, and I was gravely wounded and almost died as a result. His punishment fitted his crime. Your first attempt to depose me did not injure my person. Had I taken your head then, men would holler from Gulltown to the mountains that the Lady of the Eyrie is a blood-thirsty, bloody-handed tyrant who is unfit to rule and must be replaced with a better ruler.”

 _Allow me to give you this last piece of advice, my lady_ , her last regent had said to Jeyne on her sixteenth name day, the day he relinquished his position as regent and lord protector.  _A woman must appear twice as strong as any man, and twice as resolved as any man, lest she be called weak and unfit to rule_.  _It is an unfair and unjust burden to place on a female ruler, you are not wrong about that, but harping on the unfairness and injustice of it would not aid you in facing this difficult task ahead of you, my lady._

Jeyne had not forgotten that advice, but nor would she ignore her own conclusion based on years of close observations – that a woman’s strength and resolve were more likely to be perceived as dangerous, threatening, cruel, depraved, malicious or tyrannical than a man’s strength and resolve.

Ruling, for a woman, bore a very close resemblance to walking along a twisty, treacherous and very narrow path. Stray too close to one side, and you would be accused of being too soft and too weak to rule. Stray too close to the other side, and you would be accused of being too hard, of being a shrew, a harridan and a tyrannical ruler. The extremely difficult – nay, the near impossible – balancing act was one she could not and must not fail to achieve, if she hoped to remain as the Lady of the Eyrie. (And if she wished to ensure that _being_  the Lady of the Eyrie would not alter and transform her so radically and so fundamentally that she would no longer be able to recognize the woman she saw in the mirror each morning as  _herself_ , as Jeyne Arryn.)

After careful deliberation, Jeyne Arryn, the Lady of the Eyrie, pronounced, “I will not take your head, Arnold, nor will I take your children’s heads. Heads on spikes would rot and be forgotten in a matter of weeks. The sky cell will be your new home. I wish you all the best in it.”  


	3. Cregan Stark & Aegon III Targaryen

> _Cregan had come into his lordship at thirteen upon the death of his father, Lord Rickon, in 121 AC. During his minority, his uncle Bennard had ruled the North as regent, but in 124 AC Cregan turned sixteen, only to find his uncle slow to surrender his power. (Fire & Blood)_
> 
> _It is reliably reported that Lord Cregan Stark was also offered a place amongst [Aegon III’s] regents, but refused. (Fire & Blood)_

They sat side-by-side on one of the steps leading to the king’s personal suite of rooms in Maegor’s Holdfast, a study in contrast in more ways than one. The former Hand’s massive hand could easily cover the entirety of the king’s face, to begin with. And Cregan Stark, normally not a man known for his volubility, was positively loquacious compared to the reserved and reticent boy sitting next to him.  

 _The king is dead inside, too broken by all he had witnessed and suffered_. Cregan Stark had heard this sentiment whispered all too often during his presence in King’s Landing, from the tongues of lordlings, squires and servant boys alike. He scoffed at the notion as nothing more than piffle and nonsense. The king had merely learned to hide his pain and his distress, Cregan believed, because that was what boys must do to become men.

And none of the people talking about “the broken king” seemed to have any interest in trying to help him or aid him in any way, in trying to heal his wounds. They seemed more interested in speculating about his fitness for the throne.  

“Are you certain that you would not accept a place among my regents, Lord Stark?” the king asked, finally breaking his long silence.

“When I returned to you my chain of office as the King’s Hand, you did not hesitate to accept it, and made no effort to convince me to remain as your Hand,” Cregan pointed out. “What is so different this time?”

The king did not flush or blush, but answered simply, “I did not want you as my Hand. I never did.”

Cregan laughed. “I suppose I did force and bluster my way into the position. But the war is well and truly over now, and my place is in the North. Winter has come, and I must be with my people.”

After another long silence, the king finally said, “You told me when you first arrived in King’s Landing that false friends were more dangerous to a king than any foe. Do you have any other advice to give me, Lord Stark, now that you are departing?”

“Advice regarding what? Sitting on the Iron Throne? You are asking the wrong man for that.”

“Advice regarding regents. My sister Baela told me that you had a regent yourself, when you first became the Lord of Winterfell.”

“I did, aye. He was only supposed to be my regent for three years, but –“

“But?”

“Put away your regents firmly, on the very day you turn six-and-ten. Dismiss them without any fear or hesitation; that is my advice to you. Thank them for their service, and dismiss each and every one of them. The longer you wait, the harder it would be. I was too overawed by my uncle for a time, and it took me the best part of two years after I came of age to wrestle power away from him completely.”

Aegon stared at Lord Stark with unblinking eyes. Other boys might have gasped with amazement, or had their mouths wide open, but the king simply said, in a barely audible voice, “I could hardly imagine you being overawed by anyone, Lord Stark.”

“That is because you have never met my uncle. Those green as summer grass southron lordlings calling themselves ‘the Lads’ would piss in their breeches at the sight of Bennard Stark. He was the most intimidating of men.”

“More intimidating than yourself?” Aegon asked.

Cregan could have sworn that he saw a faint trace of a smile on the king’s face, but it was gone almost immediately after it appeared. “More intimidating thanI was at six-and-ten,” he replied.  

“What happened when your uncle would not relinquish his power as your regent?”

“I struggled mightily with him for control of the North for two years. The last straw was when he arranged a betrothal for me with his niece by marriage, without my leave, without my consent. I already had someone in mind to be my wife, to be the Lady of Winterfell, and it was certainly not with my uncle’s niece by marriage.”

“What did you do then, Lord Stark?” asked Aegon.

“I threw my uncle in Winterfell’s dungeon. And his three sons as well, when they objected and tried to incite the North to rise against me.”

The king said nothing, lost in thought, or deep in contemplation.

Cregan continued, “The only one you could truly rely on is yourself. Put your faith in  _yourself_ , in your own resilience.”

“What if … what if I am not strong enough?”

“I did not say strength, Your Grace. I said  _resilience_.”


	4. Elissa Farman/Rhaena Targaryen

> _“The queen found her true love on Fair Isle,” Maester Smike wrote to the Citadel, “not with Androw, but with his sister, Lady Elissa.” (Fire & Blood)_

“Will it truly be fine?” asks Elissa, displaying a momentary timidity and hesitation that is most uncharacteristic of her. Oh, how her brother Franklyn would sneer and smirk with satisfaction, if he could see her now, with her feet seemingly stuck on the ground, unable to take another step forward, and her fists clenched so tightly that her knuckles are turning red.   

 _Not so high-spirited now, eh?_  Franklyn would taunt Elissa.  _Not so bold and defiant now, are you, sweet sister?_

Well, thank the gods Franklyn is nowhere close in sight. Not that  _he_  would be any bolder in this situation, wagers Elissa.  

Rhaena raises her eyebrows. “Surely you are not afraid of this slender little thing? Androw told me that you sailed your first ship when you were four-and-ten, and later, you went as far north as Bear Island. He has never known anyone more fearless than his glorious sister, Androw said. It made me quite envious, truth be told. None of my own brothers had ever spoken so admiringly of me.”

That “slender little thing” is a pale blue she-dragon, whose color matches the color of Elissa’s eyes, Rhaena claims. A ship is one thing, but a dragon is something else altogether. A ship might sink to the bottom of the ocean, taking you and everyone else on board with it, but it could not burn your flesh or eat you alive. It could not –

“I am not afraid,” denies Elissa. “I am merely being cautious. There is still much I want to do in this life, so many adventures I wish to experience. Falling from a dragon would put a crimp on those plans.”

Rhaena smiles. “Do not worry. I have given others a ride on the back of Dreamfyre before, and they all live to tell the tale.”

“Your late husband, you mean, before he claimed a dragon for himself? But he was the blood of the dragon, like yourself. And I am not. Perhaps she will find me … not to her liking? Perhaps she will …  _reject_  me?”

“She will not. I am certain of that.”

“But how could you be so certain?”

“She knows friends from foes.”

“ _How_  does she know it?”

“From me. From her rider. She feels what  _I_  feel. She senses what  _I_  sense.”

“And what  _do_  you feel?” asks Elissa, with a gaze that speaks a thousand words more than just those five.

Rhaena does not reply with words. She takes Elissa’s hand, and helps her to mount Dreamfyre.

What Elissa feels when she wraps her arms around Rhaena’s waist is,  _This is right. This is true. This is how it should be. This is how I want it to be._    

Dreamfyre soars, and with her, Elissa’s heart.

She imagines herself sailing to the furthest lands beyond the Sunset Sea, while high up in the sky, Rhaena flies on the back of her dragon, traveling to the same direction.  _We will conquer the sky and the sea both_ , dreams Elissa. Fair Isle will be their base on dry land, but the sea, the endless sea and the sky above that sea, will be their new home.


	5. Aegon III Targaryen

> _“Orwyle was wont to call His Grace calm and self-possessed; I say the boy is dead inside. He walks the halls of the Red Keep like a ghost.” (Fire & Blood)_

If he is dead inside, surely it would not hurt as much it does, still, every moment of every day, with every breath he draws and every breath he releases?

If he is dead inside, surely he would not see it again and again, all the carnage and the atrocities he wishes to unsee, all the things he wishes he had never seen in the first place?

If he is dead inside, surely he would not hear it again and again, all the screams and the pleadings he wishes to unhear, all the things he wishes he had never heard in the first place?

If he is dead inside, surely he would not be forced to know it again and again, all the truths, half-truths and untruths he wishes to unknow, all the things he wishes he had never known in the first place?  

If he is dead inside, surely he would not remember every detail of every loss and every demise?

If he is dead inside, surely he could forget … nay, surely he would have forgotten already?

If he is dead inside, surely he would not be continually assailed and assaulted by numerous strains of guilt – survivor’s guilt, abandoner’s guilt, and, worst of all, the guilt of an impotent boy who could neither save nor protect the ones he loves?

If he is dead inside, surely he would not be wishing that he, too, is a ghostly presence, alongside the mother he could not save, the brother he had not saved, and the cousin-wife he also failed to save?

Wounds rot and fester inside, without conferring any kind of immunity to pain.

Pain unseen is not pain unfelt.

Pain undisplayed is not pain unfelt.

Pain unshared is not pain unfelt.

Pain unprotested is not pain unfelt.

Pain ignored is not pain unfelt.

He is  _not_  dead inside. That is his punishment and his salvation both, he believes.  


	6. Alaric Stark/the unnamed Mormont Lady Stark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this back in October after the release of the Fire & Blood excerpt, and it was originally posted in another drabble collection. The original drabble mentioned Alaric Stark’s brothers (plural), but according to the full text of Fire & Blood, Alaric only had one brother, so I’ve edited the drabble accordingly.

> _Lord Alaric had lost his wife three years earlier. When the queen expressed regret that she had never had the pleasure of meeting Lady Stark, the northman said, “She was a Mormont of Bear Isle, and no lady by your lights, but she took an axe to a pack of wolves when she was twelve, killed two of them, and sewed a cloak from their skins.” (Fire & Blood)_

“Mind that she does not take an axe to  _your_  head, Alaric.”

“Or wear your skin as her cloak.”

“She’s a  _Mormont_ , not a Bolton,” said Alaric, through clenched teeth. He’d had enough of his brother and cousins with their endless teasing about the woman he was betrothed to.  _Humorless_ , people often said of Alaric Stark, but who in their right mind could find the humor in such tedious, not-the-least amusing and all-too-predictable jests? If being deemed  _humorless_  was the price he had to pay for his unwillingness to laugh himself stupid at every silly little jape, then so be it. In his judgment, even humor must rise to a particular standard to be worthy of the label  _humorous_ , for otherwise, what was the point of it?

His brother and cousins broke into a song, each adding the next verse, all of them barely able to contain their rowdy and unruly laughter.   

“The Girl Who Slew The Wolf …“

“… In Her Wedding Bed …”

“… And Wore Him As A Cloak …“

“… To Warm Her Chilly Bones …”

“… In The Cold, Cold Nights …”

“… Of Winter At Winterfell.”

“Her name,” pronounced Alaric, with great emphasis, “is Jorelle Mormont. And I hope you do not intend to dishonor her by singing that atrocious song at our wedding.”

“It would make a great ditty for the bedding ceremony,” said Alaric’s most annoying cousin.

“I forbid it! I forbid it absolutely!”

 “Come now, Alaric, there’s no need to act like a fierce she-bear protecting her cubs. The jest is not made at your betrothed’s expense.”

_At whose expense, then?_ _Mine?_

During the bedding ceremony, none of the men who undressed Jorelle Mormont and carried her to her wedding bed had dared to utter a single word of protest as she snatched a bearskin cloak from the arms of her trailing sister to cover her nakedness.  

Alaric’s stern and solemn expression hid a burgeoning smile.  _Did she kill that bear too, like those wolves she made into a cloak?_  he imagined his brother and cousins warily wondering. Faced with the reality of Jorelle Mormont, confronted by this wolf-slayer in the flesh-and-blood, all their previous japes and jests melted away as swiftly as snowflakes touched by fire.

When they were finally left alone in their bedchamber, the first thing Jorelle said to Alaric was, “You have nothing to fear from me tonight, husband. Those were regular wolves I slew and sewed into a cloak, not direwolves.”

Alaric laughed and laughed, loudly and boisterously, as he had never laughed before.


	7. Barba Bolton

> _A northern maid named Barba Bolton, daughter of the Dreadfort, said, “If you send me home, Your Grace, send me home with food, for the snows are deep and your people are starving.” (Fire & Blood)_

Afterwards, singers and storytellers did not dub her Barba the Brave, or Barba the Bold, though she more than deserved that name. In the fullness of time, her name would almost be forgotten in the annals of history, overshadowed by that other Barba, the one from House Bracken whose fortune rose so high and then fell so precipitously as the mistress of Aegon the Fourth.

Unwin Peake, Protector of the Realm and Hand of the King to Aegon the Third, had dismissed Barba Bolton with a scornful glare and these curt words, “His Grace does not need the counsel of a green maid on matters of state.” The king’s expression was unreadable, beyond the customary nod he gave to every maiden presented before him. Barba could not even be certain that he had truly heard and understood what she had said.

She would have said much and more, if she had not been swiftly pushed aside to make way for the maiden behind her.  _How much is this ball costing the realm?_ Barba would have liked to ask.  _How much had the fathers of all these queuing maidens spent on gowns and jewels, and on bribes? If even half of that total amount had been spent to aid the people of the North in our time of need, perhaps fewer lives would be lost to hunger and starvation._

She did it merely to make herself look good in front of the king, the malicious rumors and whispers were heard afterwards. She did it to parade herself as the champion of the people, in the hope that it would induce the king to choose  _her_ as his bride. After all, she, too, was there at the ball. Her father, too, had spent money on her gowns (though Barba did not sparkle with precious gems and jewels), and possibly on bribes as well. Who was  _she_  to sound so high and mighty about it all?

Who  _was_  she? She was the daughter of the North who believed that a Northern queen in court could wield a substantial influence behind the scene that would be beneficial to the often forgotten people of the North, who thought that Cregan Stark the Warden of the North was wrong to eschew southron politics, describing it with disdain as  _‘filthier than a man’s bunghole after a good shit.’_

Politics  _mattered._  It was not an irrelevancy or a foolish, frivolous distraction. It could be dirty and it could seem less than honorable at times, yes, but it often meant the difference between life and death for so many.   


	8. Rhaenys Targaryen & Jaehaerys I Targaryen

> _Some dissented. Rhaenys herself was the first to raise objection. “You would rob my son of his birthright,” she told the king, with a hand upon her swollen belly. (Fire & Blood)_

“You would rob  _me_  of my birthright,” Rhaenys did not repeat to her grandfather, even though this was the first argument she had used to try to convince him to change his mind, even thoughthis was the thought still foremost in her mind, because she was now finally convinced that her mother had been right all along, that bringing up her own claim – the claim of a  _woman_  – was less likely to convince her grandfather than bringing up the claim of an unborn boy-child still in the womb.

With this man, as it was with so many others, it was better to bring up the claim of the child she was carrying, and to speak as if the child was certain to be a boy, Jocelyn Baratheon had counseled her daughter. “Your grandfather is not as different from other men as he might seem. Your grandmother’s influence might have pushed him to move in a certain direction over the years, but even her influence has its limit. Even her influence has failed and could still fail to move him in the direction he does not wish to move.”

Rhaenys used to believe that her grandfather was indeed different, that he was not like so many other men who thought that a cock was essential for most things,  _especially_  ruling. Where was the man who looked on with both pride and approval, who said that Rhaenys’ choice was a most wise one befitting a wise princess, when she told him of her plan to wed Corlys Velaryon? She had sincerely believed at the time that her grandfather was thinking of Corlys’ suitability to be the consort to a ruling queen, but it turned out he was merely thinking that Lady Velaryon was a good enough position for the granddaughter of a king who was not meant for the throne herself.   

Fury and frustration did battle with disappointment and disillusionment inside Rhaenys’ head and heart.  _How could you, Grandfather?_ Rhaenys implored, before raging,  _How dare you? Who is it who has been ruling beside you these many years, if not a woman? Who was it who suffered losses after losses and yet still worked tirelessly to put you on that throne, if not a woman? You dishonor your wife and your late mother both with this decision._

“If I had been born with a cock, if I had been born a Rhaegar instead of a Rhaenys, would you still believe that Uncle Baelon is better suited for the Iron Throne than I am?” Rhaenys demanded, her hand no longer resting on her pregnant belly.      

The pause was very brief and very subtle, but Rhaenys did not fail to notice her grandfather’s slight hesitation before replying to her question. “Even in that case, my decision would still remain the same,” Jaehaerys claimed, unconvincingly and unpersuasively. “All my councillors agree that a proven warrior of five-and-thirty is better suited for rule than a green youth of eight-and-ten. Whether that youth is a young man or a young woman makes no difference at all. It is simply a question of age and experience.”

The transparent lie raised Rhaenys’ fury even more. No, she would neither cry nor cry out in frustration, she told herself, over and over again. She would not give her grandfather the satisfaction of seeing her tears, her tears of rage and frustration that he would surely mistake as tears of weakness, as a sign that she was too soft to rule.   

“Not  _all_ your councillors agree, surely? Aren’t you forgetting the most important one?” Rhaenys shot back, dry-eyed and composed.  

Perplexed, Jaehaerys asked, “The most important one?”

“Did you confer with your queen at all, before making your decision? I very much doubt that Grandmother would agree with that decision. Have you forgotten what she said, the first time she held me in her arms, when I was still a babe in swaddling clothes?”

 _Our queen to be_ , Alysanne had said, after kissing the top of Rhaenys’ head.  _The first black-haired Targaryen to sit upon the Iron Throne,_ she had added, with a smile directed at her son Aemon and her good-daughter Jocelyn.


	9. Sharis Footly

> _Peake had opened a queen’s door for his daughter, but other lords had daughters too (as well as sisters, nieces, cousins, and even the odd widowed mother or maiden aunt) and before the door could close they all came pushing through, insisting that their own blood would make a better royal consort than Lady Turnips. […] Sharis Footly, widow of Tumbleton, made so bold as to nominate herself. (Fire & Blood)_

“I would not be so bold as to call myself beautiful, but others have done so at great length, singers and storytellers foremost among them,” Sharis wrote, in her letter to the king that she knew would be read by his Hand and his regents long before it reached the king himself.

So beautiful indeed, she thought, bitterly, that Bloody Jon Roxton – who somehow had snagged the thoroughly unwarranted and undeserved moniker  _Bold_  Jon Roxton – had brutally slain her husband to climb into her bed without her consent.  _The prize of war_ , he called her, claiming her as if she was merely another part and parcel of land and castle, not a living, breathing human being with a will of her own, with  _dignity_  of her own.

Well, Bloody Jon Roxton had died bloodily, as he more than deserved, and good riddance to him for all eternity. But of course, his death could not bring back to life her dead husband, nor could it erase the agonizing memories of the days and nights she had spent as his prize of war. There were times when she felt that death was an all-too-easy and unjust release for Bloody Jon. He should have  _suffered_  more, in this life, in this world, this world where he had destroyed so much of  _her_  life, not in any other world.

But Bloody Jon was dead and Sharis was alive, and the living, she had always believed, had a duty to continue  _living_ in the present, not in the past. Living up to that belief was a constant struggle, like a mountain she had to climb and re-climb over and over again, always mindful of the peril of crashing and falling along the way.    

“I have given my late husband a strong and healthy son, and still being of childbearing age, will be able to give Your Grace strong and healthy sons and daughters in the future,” she continued the letter. The king himself, being a boy of twelve, might not be so concerned with the question of her fertility, but his regents would be, Sharis expected.

_I have given my late husband a strong and healthy son._

Oh yes, she had! She would swear to all the gods old and new, even to the seven hells and back, that her son Ferris was fathered by her late husband, not by Jon Roxton. The seed might have been Bloody Jon’s, but Ferris Footly would be taught to love and honor only  _one_  father, the late Lord Ferman Footly.

 _You were conceived with love, not with hate. You were conceived with a man I had loved since I was a fair maid of six-and-ten._ Her son would be taught this, and  _only_  this, Sharis vowed. With this lie, she would rebuild Tumbleton and their lives from the ashes of death, destruction and despair, and she would adamantly and steadfastly  _refuse_  to feel guilty about that lie. It was a  _good_  lie. It was a  _necessary_  lie. The Seven might not forgive her the lie, but any god who wouldn’t forgive her that lie did not deserve her worship in any case, Sharis had long since concluded.   

“We have both witnessed and experienced much trial and suffering in this war, Your Grace, and I hope we could be kindred spirits of sort, understanding, aiding and abetting one another to rebuild the realm, and to rebuild our own lives alongside it,” Sharis ended the letter.   


	10. Baela Targaryen/Alyn Velaryon

> _By the time the hue and cry went up, she was halfway across Blackwater Bay, having hired a fisherman to carry her to Driftmark. There she sought out her cousin, the Lord of the Tides, and poured out her woes to him. A fortnight later, Alyn Velaryon and Baela Targaryen were married in the sept on Dragonstone. (Fire & Blood)_

“They locked you in your bedchamber and posted guards at your door?! You are the king’s beloved sister, and the honored first cousin of the Lord of the Tides. How dare they treat you in this manner, as if you are a recalcitrant and unruly prisoner who must be brought to heel and humbled into submission? Do these fools imagine that we are still in the midst of war, and they could make so bold as to manhandle a member of the king’s family in such a way?”

“They  _dare_  because the king is a boy of eleven.”

“Did you plead your case with His Grace?”

“What would be the point of that, except to burden him with more guilt, except to cruelly remind him of how powerless he is to protect the people he loves? No, I would not do that to my brother. Aegon is in the power of his regents and his Hand. He could no more stop this than our grandfather could from the land of the dead.”

“If the Sea Snake were still alive, they would not have  _dared_. Well,  _I_  am the Lord of the Tides and Master of Driftmark now, and I will dispatch a letter of objection to the Hand and the regents at once, sternly protesting their appalling treatment of my dearest cousin. They must know that the grandson of the Sea Snake is not so easily trifled with, despite his youth and his humble origin.”

“Let me be blunt, cousin. Your letter would not matter a whit. They will read it and ignore it at will, as if it’s never written at all. Your words would not make a scintilla of a difference.”

“I will sail to King’s Landing to declare my objection in person. They could not ignore me then.”

“The same way you sailed to King’s Landing to claim our grandfather’s seat in the council of regents after his death? Remind me, how did that turn out for you? Were you successful in achieving your goal? Did you manage to convince the Hand and the regents at all?”

“If you think me so useless, then why have you come here, to Driftmark? Why not go elsewhere, to the seat of a greater and stronger lord who no doubt could offer you his aid and his protection? What could  _I_ offer you after all, a man as  _feeble_  and as _useless_  as I must be in your eyes?”

“Prickly, are we? Do not be so quick to take offense, cousin. I never said you were useless. I said your  _words_  would be useless.”

“My words … as opposed to what?”

“As opposed to your action, of course.”

“And what action do you propose I take? Shall I declare war on the Hand and the regents?”  

“Are you a fool, or do you consider  _me_ such a rash, reckless and bloodthirsty fool? No, it is not war I want, or need. It is a husband.”

“A husband?!”

“You sound so surprised, dear cousin. What is so astonishing about a husband after all? Most women are in possession of one, at some point or other in their lives, whether they desire it or not. Do you think me unfit for matrimony, perchance? Is it my hair? Too short for a womanly woman, in your view? Is it my conduct, or the company I keep? Too wild and wanton to befit a gentle, meek and submissive wife that most men wish for and dream of, no doubt?”

“No, it is none of those things. But did you not flee from King’s Landing because you did not wish to wed? Why speak of a husband now?”

“I fled because they were trying to force me to wed a man forty years my senior I had no intention of marrying. I did not flee because I despised the thought of having a husband in general. I would not be  _too_  averse to marrying a man of my own choosing. Granted, I would rather wed later than sooner, but it is now a matter of necessity. If I am wed already, then they could not force me to wed a man of  _their_ choosing, whether it is Lord Rowan or anyone else.”

“And who is this man you wish to wed, as a matter of necessity? Is he here in Driftmark?”

“ _He_  is the clueless fool standing in front of me. Oh, must I say his name? Surely you know by now, cousin. Coyness does not become you. It does not become any man.”

“But we are … we are –“

“We are  _cousins_ , and that is what we will avow and assert to the world at large, until the day we draw our last breath. And even if we are both aware that we are not truly cousins, fear not, for I am a Targaryen, and Targaryens have no trouble at all marrying their uncles or half-uncles.”

“May I remind you that  _I_  am not a Targaryen?”

“And I will remind you that there is Velaryon blood in every Targaryen and Targaryen blood in every Velaryon, as Grandfather Corlys loved to say.”


	11. Aegon III Targaryen & Viserys II Targaryen

>   _As a boy, Aegon had worshipped his three elder half-brothers, but it was Viserys who shared his bedchamber, his lessons, and his games. “Some part of the king had died with his brother in the Gullet,” wrote Munkun. (Fire & Blood)_
> 
> _“He has no friends save for the bastard boy Gaemon Palehair, and seldom sleeps through the night. During the hour of the wolf he can oft be found standing by a window, gazing up at the stars, but when I presented him with Archmaester Lyman’s Kingdoms of the Sky, he showed no interest.” (Fire & Blood)_

“The stars are the dead reborn,” Viserys had whispered one night, after slipping away from his own bed and climbing onto Aegon’s bed to lie next to his brother.

“Did you have a bad dream again? Was that what woke you?” Aegon had asked.

Viserys nodded. “I dreamt that the stars are the dead come again. They have faces, really  _terrifying_  faces, and there’s blood running down their cheeks, and their eyes … their eyes look like they had been gouged out by sharp talons.”

Aegon winced. He tried to soothe his younger brother by saying, “It’s just a dream. It’s not real. Close your eyes and think of something else. Something … nicer.”

His words did the opposite of soothing Viserys. “It looked real enough to me!” the boy protested, loudly and heatedly. “The stars are the dead come again. I saw it, I swear!” Viserys insisted, near tears.

Aegon quickly changed his tack. “The dead come again? Come again to do what?” he asked.  

“To seek vengeance against their murderers,” said Viserys, shuddering.    

Aegon shifted his blanket to Viserys’ side of the bed, to cover his brother’s shivering body. “Their murderers? Not all the dead are murdered. You know that, Vis. Sometimes people just die, naturally. They sicken, or they grow old. You can’t seek vengeance against old age, or against an illness, can you?”

Viserys scrunched his face, pondering the question for a long while. “I suppose not,” he finally relented, grudgingly. “But what are the stars, then, if not the dead come again to avenge their death?”

“They are … well, they are … they are the dead come again to comfort their loved ones. They come to visit each night, to comfort the ones mourning them, the ones left behind,” Aegon replied, weaving a story that he thought  _might_ have a chance of tempting his brother’s boundless curiosity. Viserys did not look all that convinced, truth be told, but as Aegon continued the tale of the visiting stars, he  _did_  seem calmer and far less distressed.  

Aegon himself did not really believe in the tale he weaved, obviously. It was only something he invented because his brother was afraid, because his brother needed to be comforted, to be soothed back to sleep.

But now,  _now_  he desperately  _needed_  to believe in that tale himself.

_That is Mother’s star, Vis. The brightest one in the sky, always, night after night. And those three stars bunched really close together, those three that look like they are shadowing one another, they are Jace’s, Luke’s and Joff’s stars._

_And that one, that one is Father’s. The one half-hiding behind the moon. Father’s face is his mask and his mask is his face, you once told me, and I laughed and said it made no sense at all, you silly, fanciful boy. You went away sulking, and would not speak to me for two whole days. But I think I understand now. I understand what you were trying to tell me. I’m sorry I laughed at you back then._

There was no reply to his apology. How could there be? And there was no real comfort to be found in the stars, yet Aegon gazed at them still, night after night, wishing for the impossible.   

Wishing for the impossible, and praying against all hope that none of the stars he spied on the night sky was his brother Viserys come again.

_Tell me that you are still alive, Vis. Alive and raging at me. Alive and hating me. Alive and vowing never to forgive me. Alive and swearing vengeance against me for leaving you behind, for abandoning you to a cruel fate. But alive, nonetheless._

But  _that_  was an even more impossible dream, Aegon knew, and knew it very well indeed.

_Those are our stars, Vis. The twin stars, conjoined and entwined for eternity._

_But we are not twins, not like Baela and Rhaena._

_No, we are not like Baela and Rhaena; that is true enough. They are joined in life, but we are joined in death._

_But you are not dead._

_No, not dead like you, but –_

_You are not dead!_


	12. Rhaena Targaryen/Larissa Velaryon

> _Though her mother provided her with a succession of suitable companions, the daughters of lords great and small, Rhaena never seemed to warm to any of them, preferring the company of a book. […] Not long after, Rhaena made her first true friend in the person of her cousin Larissa Velaryon. For a time the two girls were inseparable…until Larissa was suddenly recalled to Driftmark to be wed to the second son of the Evenstar of Tarth. (Fire & Blood)_

They came too close, the girls her mother had chosen to be Rhaena’s companions before Larissa. They came too close and they crowded her, not physically but emotionally, leaving her feeling stifled and suffocated. They were all over her, poking and prodding her mind, her thoughts, her heart, her feelings, the part of herself she wished to keep to herself. They were always asking her endless questions about whether she was unhappy, or sad, or lonely.  _You look very lonely, Princess_ , one or the other would inevitably remark, when they saw Rhaena curled up with a book. They could not seem to believe that Rhaena would be happy in the solitary company of written words telling tales about those who were long dead.  

Larissa was different. Larissa never pushed, poked or prodded, and, Rhaena suspected, she despised being pushed, poked or prodded as much as Rhaena herself. They could spend hours and hours together, sitting side-by-side, Rhaena reading a book and Larissa embroidering or drawing, each engrossed in her own favorite activity, without feeling the need to fill up the silence with needless words and pointless banter.

Within those calm and peaceful silence, Rhaena found her voice. “I don’t like being called shy,” she told Larissa one day. “It is not shyness that prevents me from getting close to someone.”

“You will not be called shy for much longer,” replied Larissa. “Only girls are called shy. Once we grow into womanhood, they will call women like us cold and unfeeling.”

“Cold and unfeeling?”

“But we are not that either.”

“Then what are we?”

“Reserved.”

 _Reserved_. Rhaena liked that description much better than shy, or cold and unfeeling.

Larissa continued, “Just because we do not wish to share our feelings with all and sundry, and we do not wish to  _display_  our feelings to all and sundry, it does not mean that we do not have any feelings at all. And it certainly does not mean that we are incapable of sharing those feelings with anyone. But it needs –“

“The right person,” said Rhaena. “Someone we’re comfortable with. Someone we truly trust.”

Larissa nodded. “Someone we believe would not break faith with us,” she added.

Later, when Rhaena began to realize that what she felt for Larissa was not just friendship (though that friendship was still as dear and as precious to her as the other feeling, because it was that friendship that first led her to find her voice and to discover herself anew), she wished that there was a word to replace the oft-cited  _‘abomination’_  to describe their attraction to one another. A word as apt as  _‘reserved’_ was as a replacement to  _‘shy’_  or  _‘cold and unfeeling.’_


	13. Cregan Stark/Arra Norrey

>  S _oon after he wed Lady Arra Norrey, a beloved companion since childhood, only to have her die in 128 AC whilst giving birth to a son and heir, whom Cregan named Rickon after his father. (Fire & Blood)_

“Faster!” Arra yelled, from quite a distance ahead of Cregan.

“I’m … climbing … as … fast … as I … can,” muttered Cregan under his breath, not having enough breath to yell out his reply.

She was waiting for him, arms folded, eyes blazing with a mixture of impatience and amusement. “Is climbing this tiny hill too much for our little lordling from Winterfell?”

This  _tiny_ hill? Cregan could not believe his ears. They had been climbing without rest for three hours at least, or perhaps closer to four, and they had not even reached the peak. It was a mountain, a great big mountain! How could she call it a hill, let alone a tiny one?

But then again, to a girl born and bred amongst the mountain clans, what they were climbing probably  _did_  seem like an insignificant hill to Arra Norrey, compared to the other heights she had climbed and conquered.  

“Perhaps Lord Stark made a mistake, when he decided to foster his heir with my father. Perhaps his heir would prefer to be fostered by Lord Manderly in a  _grand_  city like White Harbor. There are no hills to climb there, and –“

“And no impertinent girls calling me the little lordling,” Cregan interjected, once he had breath enough to speak.

“If the name fits, then you must wear it,” Arra said, with impudent cheek. “You are the little lordling for now, until such a time comes that the name no longer fits you,” she declared.  

“I am not short!” Cregan exclaimed. He was prickly about his height, truth be told. His father and his uncle both towered over other men, but at the rate he was growing, he would be lucky to reach their chests even in the fullness of his manhood.

And worst of all, he was shorter than Arra! He was nine and she was eight, but she was taller than him by a head. He thought he would perish of humiliation the day she told him how old she was. He had convinced himself previously that she had passed her tenth name day at least.  

Arra rolled her eyes. “I never said you’re short.  _The little lordling_  is not a slight against your height. You’ll grow tall soon enough, I’m sure, as tall as your father. And taller than your uncle.”

“When would that be? A hundred years from now?” grumbled Cregan.

“No, not a hundred years from now, silly. A few years from now. When your voice changes, and you begin to grow hair on your face. That was when my brothers grew taller. They shot up in an instant, it seemed like.”

“Then … then … I’ll be taller than you,” said Cregan, grinning like a fool.   

“Most likely. Most men  _are_  taller than most women, though not all of them. I don’t see why you have to look so happy about it. Taller does not mean  _better_. Taller just means taller. You can be as tall as a giant and still be a little lordling inside.”

“I want to be a giant inside too,” pronounced Cregan, solemnly.

“Well, first, you have to try to beat me to the top. Ready?”


	14. Aegon III Targaryen & the “secret siege” of Maegor Holdfast

> " _You stood beside me when the dragon ate my mother,” Aegon answered. “All you did was watch. I will not have you watch while they kill my brother’s wife.” (Fire & Blood)_

This time, it would be different, vowed Aegon. This time, he would not be too late. This time, he would do more than merely shouting, “Mother, flee.”

This time, the sword he picked up would not be knocked aside so easily by the traitors and the betrayers.

This time, they would not tear his brother’s wife from his protection as easily as they had torn his mother from his arms.

This time, he would not be frozen in place, powerless to move. This time,  _he_  would make the first move. The drawbridge to Maegor’s Holdfast would remain raised and all the gates would remain barred as long as the traitors and betrayers remained in power.  

This time, they would have to step over his dead body before they could kill the woman his brother loved.  

He owed this to his brother, after abandoning Viserys to his cruel fate aboard the  _Gay Abandon._

He owed this to his brother, after failing to save the mother they both loved and still deeply grieved.

_They will not murder your wife like they murdered our mother. I will not allow it, I promise you!_

_I will not fail you again, Vis. And I will not fail Larra like I failed Mother._


	15. Myrielle Peake

> _Lady Myrielle brought the doll with her when she made her own appearance at the ball, cradling it in her arms as if it were a babe. (Fire & Blood)_

Myrielle did not want to take the doll with her to the ball. She did not want to be the butt of cruel japes and mockeries once more.  _Lady Turnips_  was quite enough, and she had her father to thank for that name. But her father was very adamant, going so far as to threaten dire punishment if she refused to display the doll the king had given her.

“It will remind His Grace of his great affection for you,” he insisted. After all, giving her one of Queen Jaehaera’s dolls was as good as saying that the king wanted Myrielle to be his new queen, Father claimed. The doll was a sign and a symbol both, Father declared, looking and sounding greatly pleased with himself. “All my hard work will not be for naught,” he said, with emphasis on  _my_ , as if Myrielle herself had done nothing at all, as if she had not tried her best to endear herself to the king.

Why couldn’t he say  _our hard work,_ this time? This one time, at least? Why couldn’t he recognize and appreciate what she had done? Why couldn’t he  _see_  her as something more than just a passive instrument or a mindless tool he could use and misuse with impunity to achieve his ambition?

Her father was the same as he always was. He had not changed at all, not even after losing all his other children except Myrielle. He would  _never_  change, Myrielle was convinced, not because he was incapable of change, but because he would always refuse to change, seeing nothing wrong with the way he treated his children, regardless of the consequences they suffered.   

 _If I am queen_ , thought Myrielle, when her father summoned her to court,  _then Father could not treat me as if I am nothing. He would have to really see me and hear me, for once. Not while he is still the regent and the Protector of the Realm, of course, but later, when the king is of age. Later, he could not disregard me as he has always done for all my life, if I am Queen Myrielle._

And so, Myrielle set out to win the king’s heart, and to prove how worthy she was to be his queen, and to be the realm’s queen. She did not do this for her father’s sake. She did this for her own sake.  

Alas, her father was wrong, so very, very wrong about what the king intended to do. Myrielle knew better than to try to tell him this. Unwin Peake did not appreciate being corrected, least of all by his children. Like all her siblings, Myrielle had learned this the hard way, years ago. Her father would not learn of the king’s true intention from her lips. Let him learn of the king’s true intention during the ball itself. Myrielle refused to be the blamed messenger.        

 “You can have one of Jaehaera’s dolls, but not her place as my queen,” the king had whispered in Myrielle’s ear, while Mushroom was entertaining them with his bawdy version of the story of Florian and Jonquil.

“What did I do wrong, Your Grace? How have I offended you?” Myrielle had whispered back.  

The king said nothing for a long while. Finally, he said, “It is not your fault that you are your father’s daughter. But you  _are_ your father’s daughter, and I refuse to have Lord Peake as my good-father and the grandfather to my children.”

_It is you he does not want, Father. You, not me. I am not at fault. You cannot blame me this time, as you have always blamed your children every time something is not to your liking._

What a fool her father was! He thought he could treat the boy king as cruelly and as callously as he had always treated his own children and he would not have to pay any price for it.  

Recognizing her father as a fool went a long way to lift the hold of his tyrannical shadow on Myrielle. Her father was not invincible and all-powerful after all. Her father could be defeated and thwarted, like any other man.


	16. Anya Weatherwax

>   _Lady Anya Weatherwax, aged seven, informed His Grace that her horse’s name was Twinklehoof and she loved him very much, and asked if His Grace had a good horse too. (Fire & Blood)_

The ball was for maidens, but Anya was not yet a maiden. Mother had always taught Anya that girls became maidens after their moonblood came and then maidens became women after they were wed, but now Father was saying it did not matter that Anya was not yet a maiden because the king was still a boy and he would not try to consummate his marriage too quickly. Mother countered that the king’s regents might command him to do it so he could beget an heir as soon as possible, but Father replied that even His Grace’s regents could not force the royal manhood to rise to the occasion before it was ready. Anya would have asked Mother what Father meant by this, except she knew she was not supposed to hear what Mother and Father were discussing in the first place, so she kept quiet instead.  

“You must praise the king when it is your turn to be presented,” Father instructed her, but Anya did not really know what to say about this boy she had never met before. Call him brave, call him valiant, call him glorious, call him magnificent, call him all sorts of wonderful things, Father said, but Anya was afraid that the king might ask, “How do you know that I am any of those things, when you do not know me at all?”

It reminded her of the time she tried to praise her septa to high heaven to get out of trouble after missing yet another lesson so she could go riding instead. “You are the kindest, gentlest, cleverest, most beautiful, most wonderful woman alive, Septa Amara,” Anya had said, in her brightest voice and even brighter smile. Septa Amara was  _not_  impressed. Not in the least. She had frowned, narrowed her eyes and warned Anya sternly, “Do not think you could curry favor with your insincere praise and flattery. Your lady mother will be told of your transgressions, of all the lessons you have missed and neglected.” Later, after Anya had made up the lessons she missed, Septa Amara softened and said, in a kinder, gentler tone, “A praise should be sincere and it should come from the heart, my lady, not from a glib tongue.”

So Anya decided to talk about her horse instead, when it was her turn to be presented to the king. That was not insincere, because she did love Twinklehoof very much indeed, and she wished the king, too, had a horse he loved just as much.

The king looked like he might ask, “Why is your horse called Twinklehoof?”, to which Anya would have replied, “He’s called Twinklehoof because the first time I saw him, he looked all sparkly and twinkly, Your Grace, like the stars on a very dark night.” But the sour lord interrupted sourly and said His Grace had a  _hundred_ horses in his stables. Well, Anya knew  _that!_  His Grace was the king after all. He must have plenty of horses in his stables. She did not mention her horse because she wanted to compete with the king about who had more horses. That was not the reason she talked about Twinklehoof. The sour lord was  _wrong,_   _wrong_ ,  _wrong_.

“Is it my fault, Mother? Did I do something wrong?” Anya asked later, after she was not picked to be the king’s new queen. Perhaps she did not smile brightly enough. Or perhaps her smile was not as pretty as Lady Daenaera’s smile. Or perhaps the question she had asked the king was not clever enough.

Mother did not look sad or disappointed. Mother looked relieved, in truth, unlike Father. She kissed Anya on both cheeks and then said, “It is not your fault, sweetling. The king chose Lady Daenaera because she was recommended by his sisters. He trusts his sisters, and thus he trusts their choice of bride for him.”

“He would not have picked  _me_  even if I had asked him a different question?”

Mother nodded.

“The king looked so sad up there, all alone. I still wonder if he has a good horse, a horse he loves as much as I love Twinklehoof, to keep him company.”

Anya was not sad at all to return home. Twinklehoof would be waiting for her. She could not wait to ride him again.


	17. Jonquil Darke & Alysanne Targaryen

>   _A raven flew to Duskendale that very night, commanding the new Lord Darklyn to send to court his bastard half-sister, Jonquil Darke, who had thrilled the smallfolk during the War for the White Cloaks as the mystery knight known as the Serpent in Scarlet. Still in scarlet, she arrived at King’s Landing a few days later, and gladly accepted appointment as the queen’s own sworn shield. (Fire & Blood)_

“Were you named after the Jonquil from the stories of Florian and Jonquil?” the queen asked.

“I was, Your Grace. My father was enamored with the tale, though it was the song sung by singers he loved much more than the story told by storytellers. Music made everything sound more stirring and affecting, he used to say. A song could penetrate the heart and the soul the way a mere story could never do, he claimed.”

“Your father?” The queen seemed disconcerted, as if she could not reconcile this description of Jonquil’s father with the late Lord Darklyn, a stern and severe man not known for his love of either songs or stories.  

“The father who gave me my name, Your Grace,” Jonquil replied.  _Both_  her names, the Jonquil and the Darke, the latter given to Lord Darklyn’s bastard daughter in exchange for an income and the position of master-at-arms at Duskendale. “Ser Harryd of House Darke. He was a distant kin to the Darklyns. He died when I was three-and-ten.”

“Ahhh.” The queen said nothing more for a long while. She probably knew quite well what had taken place. It was not such an unusual arrangement in certain quarters. Great lords impregnated women who were not their wives, and proceeded to find husbands for those women. The children would be given the surnames of those husbands in exchange for certain boons from the great lords, though more often than not, their true paternity was known to all, and they were seen as bastards nonetheless, despite not carrying a bastard surname.

“And your mother … was she … was she fond of your father, of Ser Harryd, I mean?”

“She made the best of her situation. As she had to. As many women had to, for the sake of their children,” replied Jonquil. Harissa Darke had dreamed of becoming Lady Darklyn after the death of Lord Darklyn’s first wife, but instead, she was wed to her first cousin while Lord Darklyn took a Hollard as his second wife. The Darkes, with their origin from a Darklyn bastard who was granted a piece of land and a small keep by his lordly father, were not considered quite respectable enough to produce the next Lady of Duskendale.  

Bitterly resigned and resignedly bitter, Harissa Darke endured nevertheless, for her children’s sake, for the sake of the daughter fathered by Lord Darklyn and the son and daughter fathered by Ser Harryd. Jonquil loved her mother dearly, and admired her mother’s fortitude even more, but her mother’s life was not one she would wish for herself.       

The queen’s hand stroked her swollen belly. “A mother would endure many things for her children’s sake, even the things she never thought she could endure. My own mother taught me that, with her example if not her words. Which brings us to a somewhat related matter. A Kingsguard is sworn not to wed and not to father children. My sworn shield is not bound by such an oath.”

“I have no wish to wed, Your Grace. I would not have accepted the appointment as your sworn shield had I wished to become a wife and a mother.”     

“You would rather be wed to your sword?”

“I would rather live as I wish, than as my husband wishes me to live.”


	18. Alysanne Blackwood & Benjicot Blackwood

> _Huntress, horse-breaker, and archer without peer, Black Aly had little of a woman’s softness about her. Many thought her to be of that same ilk as Sabitha Frey, for they were oft in one another’s company, and had been known to share a tent whilst on the march. Yet in King’s Landing, whilst accompanying her young nephew Benjicot at court and council, she had met Cregan Stark and conceived a liking for the stern northman. (Fire & Blood)_

“You really wish to wed him? What about Lady Sabitha?”

“What  _about_ Sabitha? Sabitha is my great friend, as I am hers. We have a great many interests in common, and we have shared a great many things besides, including tents and beds, but we have never bedded one another. That Lady Sabitha prefers to bed women is not a secret to either one of us, but that does not mean she wishes to bed  _every_  woman she knows, or  _every_  woman she has a close relationship with. She has her companions, and she has her friends. I am not one of her companions.”

“When my lord father was still alive, you fought him tooth and nail every time he tried to arrange a betrothal for you. He despaired of ever getting you wed, he said so often enough. I thought … I thought that perhaps -”

“You thought that perhaps I did not want to be wed to  _any_  man? I misliked all the men my brother wanted me to wed. Some of them were weak and spineless, men without true grit and spirit, men I could not conceive myself ever  _liking_ , let alone loving and respecting. Some of them saw me as strange and peculiar, not a  _womanly_ woman as they perceived a true lady and a good wife should be. Oh, they tried their best to conceal their distaste, no doubt still eager for the connection to the Lord of Raventree, but I am not such a fool as to miss it. They would wish to  _change_  me if ever we were wed. They would seek to curb and control what they see as my improper and unbefitting thoughts, words, deeds, manners, skills and interests, I have no doubt.”

“They would not succeed, surely, Aunt Aly? You have never been one to comply so easily, to submit without a fight.”

“They would fail, to be sure, but the protracted battle is not one I wish to fight for the rest of my married life. It would be a  _hellish_  union, a living hell on earth that could rival the seven hells that those septons of the new gods are much too fond of describing.”

“What about the men you thought were spineless? You could  _make_  something of them, I’m sure, like you did with the weakling boy of eleven I once was when I became the Lord of Raventree.”

“That is not the same thing, for you were never a weakling, Ben. I only had to remind you to dig deep inside yourself to find your courage. If I have no desire for a husband who would seek to change me into someone I am not, into someone I have no wish to be, then why should I attempt to change a man I could never love into someone I could, into someone  _he_  may not wish to be? Let the poor man be. I would rather find a man I could love as he is, without wishing him to be different.”

“And Cregan Stark is that man?”

“He is. He is also the man who could love me as _I_  am, without wishing me to be different, and that is equally important.”


	19. Oscar Tully & Kermit Tully

> _The undistinguished history of House Tully had only been exacerbated by the character of its last two lords … but now the gods had brought a younger generation of Tullys to the fore, a pair of proud young men determined to prove themselves, Lord Kermit as a ruler and Ser Oscar as a warrior. (Fire & Blood)_

Oscar used to call his brother  _‘Kim.’_ Kermit was too much of a tongue-twister for him when he first began to speak, so Kim it had been, and Kim it remained for a number of years, until their great-grandfather Lord Grover finally deigned to notice and sternly took Oscar to task for “disrespecting your older brother and your future liege lord.”

“It is not your place to call him by a diminutive of his name. He is not some childhood playmate of yours,” thundered Lord Grover.

Oscar, never one for cowering even as a boy, and always quick with his words, had swiftly replied, “But we  _are_  children. And we  _do_  play together. We play together, we train with arms together and we take all our lessons together. We are inseparable, Father says, as good as twins, even if we were born eighteen months apart.”

“Your father is a  _fool_ , boy! Kermit will be the Lord of Riverrun someday. Which lord will you be?” Lord Grover asked, mockingly.

 _The Lord of Swords_ , Oscar was going to retort, but his brother’s vigorous shaking of the head stayed his tongue. Kermit was always trying to get him to mind his tongue in front of Great-Grandfather so he would not be accused of insolence. Oscar never minded much the punishment Lord Grover meted out on him, not even the lashings, but Kermit seemed to mind more on his behalf.

Their great-grandfather often roared and thundered like a fearsome beast, but as the brothers grew older, they did not fail to notice that Lord Grover’s commands and pronouncements were seldom heeded, let alone respected, by his bannermen in the riverlands. The riverlords seemed to regard Lord Grover as a grouchy, cantankerous and stubborn old man who sometimes had to be humored, but only with words, and never with actions or actual compliance.

Grover Tully was the Lord Paramount of the Trident in name only, not in practice. House Tully was the liege lord of all the other Houses in the riverlands, but it was seldom treated and respected as such. Too many in the riverlands still believed that it was Edmyn Tully’s canny opportunism that had led to House Tully being raised to its liege lord rank by Aegon the Conqueror, despite its relative lack of wealth, pedigree, prestige and illustrious history compared to a number of more distinguished Houses in the riverlands.

And it certainly did not help that none of the Lord Tullys coming after Lord Edmyn (who himself had served as King Aegon’s Hand) had distinguished themselves as great lords or renowned warriors in the eyes of the riverlords and the people of the riverlands.  

It was a painful, shameful and humiliating state of affair for the Tullys, and Kermit and Oscar felt it very deeply indeed.        

“When you are Lord of Riverrun and the Lord Paramount of the Trident, promise me that you will not allow yourself to be seen and treated as an ineffectual jape like Great-Grandfather,” Oscar grumbled to his brother.

“Have no worry. I have no intention of following in his footsteps,” vowed Kermit.

“You must prove yourself worthy of the Tully name, the Tully name that Lord Edmyn with his effort had raised to liege lord rank in the riverlands.”

“We  _both_  must,” Kermit said. “And we must prove ourselves worthy through our deeds and our accomplishments. Merely  _demanding_ respect, like Great-Grandfather is wont to do, is not enough. Respect must be  _earned_.” 


	20. Baela Targaryen & Laena Velaryon

> " _Name him Corlys, after my grandsire,” Lord Alyn told her. “One day he may sit the Iron Throne.” Baela laughed at that. “I will name her Laena, after my mother. One day she may ride a dragon.” (Fire & Blood)_

One of Baela’s most vivid recollections of her mother was watching her taking flight atop her dragon. Her mother had looked so  _magnificent_ , so fearless, so determined, so  _invincible_ , as if nothing could ever defeat her or conquer her. She seemed to be as much a creature of the sky as the great and mighty Vhagar, the dragon she rode as naturally and as gracefully as if she were riding a favorite horse that she had loved and befriended ever since it was a little pony, even though in truth, Vhagar was an ancient creature by the time Laena Velaryon claimed her.    

Rhaena had cried, watching their mother mounting her dragon, fearful that she was leaving them forever, but Baela knew that Mother would surely return, and she would return with twinkling eyes, a cheerful countenance and a jubilant smile. She would return refreshed and energized, as if riding her dragon had recharged her and provided her with a fresh burst of energy. She would embrace her daughters tightly, shower kisses on their cheeks and their foreheads, and proceed to tell them all about the glorious and wondrous sights she had spotted from the sky.

She would  _not_  take her daughters flying with her, however. Her husband had been taken to the sky for the first time by his own mother Princess Alyssa when he was still a babe in swaddling clothes, and Prince Daemon was quite eager for this to be a family tradition. Lady Laena had strongly disagreed. “When our girls fly for the first time, it should be with their own dragons, the creatures they have chosen and bonded with, the creatures they have loved and befriended,” she told her husband. Even after her untimely death, Prince Daemon still remembered and respected her wish, and he never took their daughters flying on  _his_  dragon.

For a while, before Grandmother Rhaenys finally managed to convince her otherwise, little Baela had sincerely and solemnly believed that if Mother had managed to mount Vhagar, then she would not have died, because riding her dragon would have made Mother all better, would have cured her from her pain and her sickness, would have brought her back to her family refreshed and energized, ready for another day, and many, many more days after that.   

To this day, Baela still wished that her mother had successfully made her way to her dragon when she was dying, so she could take flight one last time, so she could draw her last breath while doing the thing she had loved for most of her life.


	21. Rhaena Targaryen/Melony Piper

> T _he princess had been most loath to be parted from her dragon, Dreamfyre, and her latest favorite, Melony Piper, a red-haired maiden from the riverlands. (Fire & Blood)_

The princess could not seem to stop staring at Melony’s hair. The expression on her face was indecipherable, however. Princess Rhaena could be very unpredictable at times, and you never really knew how she would react to something until the very moment she actually reacted to the thing. Melony had been warned about this by the other girls and young ladies who had been selected by the queen to be her elder daughter’s companions over the years.

Rather than making her nervous, or afraid, or even slightly wary, the warning actually had the effect of arousing and inflaming Melony’s interest and curiosity about Rhaena Targaryen. The princess was a puzzle and an enigma that Melony was determined to solve and decipher, before their time together came to an end.

“If you are not careful, Mel, your fiery nature will get you in trouble with the prickly princess,” her brother Jon had added his own warning, recalled Melony.

The so-called prickly princess, in the meantime, had shifted her attention to examining Melony’s eyebrows, which were as flaming red as her hair. Princess Rhaena’s face still gave out no hint whatsoever about what she was thinking and feeling.   

 _She is stone and I am flame_. No, that was not quite accurate, Melony amended. The fire burned as brightly inside Princess Rhaena as it did inside herself, she would wager.

“You are a true redhead,” the princess finally remarked, in an off-hand manner, as if she had not just spent a very, very long time gazing at  _this_  particular redhead.    

“A  _true_  redhead, Princess? As opposed to what, pray tell? A  _fake_  redhead? Did you suspect me of wearing a wig?” questioned Melony.

_Is that the reason you could not take your eyes off of me? Are you trying to ascertain whether my hair is truly my hair? Or is there another reason, the real reason, my dear Princess?_

“Oh, I do not doubt the genuineness of your hair, Lady Melony. No wig could ever look so natural,” replied Princess Rhaena. “But I have known too many instances in which those with auburn hair are called redheads. Or even worse, those who by right should be called orangeheads are called redheads instead.”

 _Orangeheads._ Melony laughed and laughed, loudly and boisterously. She could not help it. No one had ever told her that the so-called prickly princess could be very funny indeed.   


	22. Aegon III Targaryen & Viserys II Targaryen, reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A sequel to [ **this drabble**  ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16699678/chapters/40956128)about Aegon III gazing at the stars and thinking about his brother.

> _The boy threw back his cowl._ _As the sunlight glittered on the silver-gold hair beneath, King Aegon III began to weep, throwing himself upon this boy in a fierce embrace. (Fire & Blood)_
> 
> _The return of his brother from the dead worked a wondrous change in Aegon III, Munkun tells us. (Fire & Blood)_

It was the triumph of his heart over his mind which had allowed Aegon to run unhesitatingly into his brother’s arms the very moment he grasped the identity of the boy standing in front of him. If he had waited, waited even a moment longer, waited for thoughts to encroach upon feelings, he would not have found the courage to approach Viserys at all. He would have been too terrified, too full of unanswered questions, questions whose answers he feared and dreaded.

Would Viserys return his embrace, or would he spurn the brother who had abandoned him, who had caused him to be taken hostage and to be separated from his home and his family for four years? Or, worse still, would Viserys feel that he had no choice except to return the unwanted embrace, despite his reluctance, or, worst of all, despite his absolute revulsion towards the brother who had failed to keep his promise never to leave the dragonless boy behind?

But in that first moment of realizing, of recognizing, Aegon had not given himself time to think, only to  _feel_ , and that had led to the tears, the running and the fierce embrace, as well as to the words that he had whispered over and over again in his brother’s ear, “You are safe. You are alive. You have returned to me from the stars, Vis.”

Viserys had chuckled at that. “I was never one of the stars in the night sky,” he replied. “The stars are the dead reborn, coming to visit the ones they leave behind, you once told me, coming to comfort and soothe the ones mourning them. But I was never dead, brother. I’ve been alive all along.” 

 _He_  was the one who had been lingering in the land between the living and the dead, since the day he flew away on Stormcloud.  _No more_ , vowed Aegon. He would reside  _solely_  in the land of the living after this, with the beloved brother miraculously returned to his side. He would not squander even a moment of this second chance he had been granted, and granted against all odds.       


	23. Rhaena Targaryen & tears

> _When word of the battle reached the west and Princess Rhaena learned that both her husband and her friend Lady Melony had fallen, it is said she heard the news in a stony silence. “Will you not weep?” she was asked, to which she replied, “I do not have the time for tears.” (Fire & Blood)_

They wanted her to make a public spectacle of her grief. They wanted to be able to measure how much tears she shed for Aegon, compared to how much tears she shed for Melony. They wanted the question _, “Did she love her husband more, or did she love her so-called friend who was actually her lover more?_ ” to be answered based on the loudness and the severity of her weeping, based on the redness of her eyes and the puffiness of her face.   

Well, she refused! She  _refused_  to be made a public spectacle in such a way. She _refused_  to allow her grief to be  _cheapened_  in such a way, to be demeaned and degraded as mere fodders for rumors and gossips. And most of all, she  _refused_ to allow the deaths of Aegon and Melony to be used as the means for satisfying the prurient curiosity of others.  

_My tears are not for your consumption, nor are they for your entertainment or your gratification. And I do not require your pity or your sympathy, sincerely meant or otherwise._

She would be judged as cold and unfeeling. Rhaena had no doubt about this at all. Well, let them. Let them call her all manners of horrible names under the sun.  _Aegon_  would know.  _Melony_  would know. They would know how much she screamed and wept and cried out inside, in her heart, in her soul, in her very  _bones_. They would know how deeply her grief ran, for both of them, for each of them. And  _that_  was the only thing that mattered.   


	24. Rhaena Targaryen & Baela Targaryen, dragonriding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sequel to **[The Sun and the Moon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17889962)**

> _On the third day of the third moon of that year, the people of King’s Landing woke to a sight that had not been seen since the dark days of the Dance: a dragon in the skies above the city. Lady Rhaena, at the age of nineteen, was flying her dragon, Morning, for the first time. (Fire & Blood)_

“How will I know?” Rhaena had asked her twin sister more than once. “How will I know that my dragon is ready to take flight, ready to take me to the sky? What if I push her too hard, or too soon? What if I try to ride her before she is ready? What will happen then? Will she reject me as her rider, forever? Will she lose her faith and her trust in me? If that happens, can I ever regain her faith and her trust?”

“When the time is right,” Baela had replied, “you will certainly know, and you will know it without a doubt. You will know it in  _your_  heart, because the bond you have formed and nurtured with your dragon will let you know what is in  _her_  heart. When the time is right, Morning will let you know that she is ready to take flight with you on her back, just like Moondancer had let me know that _she_ was ready to take flight with  _me_  on her back. As long as you do not force the issue, then your dragon will not lose her faith and her trust in you, I promise you that.”

Rhaena had never doubted how much her sister truly missed being a dragonrider, but the look on Baela’s face as she spoke those words – a look that was wistful, mournful and full of longing in equal measure – reminded her of that fact even more forcefully.

Taking hold of her sister’s hand and bringing it to her lips to graze it with a kiss, Rhaena said, “There are other eggs, Baela. Eggs that could still hatch. You could be a dragonrider again. You could conquer the sky with another dragon. Another Moondancer, if you like. A Moondancer reborn. We will fly side by side on our dragons, as we are meant to do.”

Her words echoed her sister’s own words, years ago, spoken after Rhaena’s dragon – the one she had named Sundancer to match her sister’s Moondancer – perished only a few hours after hatching.  _There are other eggs, Rhae,_ Baela had said. _Your next dragon’s egg will hatch, I am certain of it, and then you will have a dragon to match my own. You will be a dragonrider too. We both will. We will race each other from Driftmark to Dragonstone and back again. And then we will fly side by side across the Narrow Sea to Pentos, to visit the land where we were born._

“With your new dragon, we could still make that journey to Pentos on dragonbacks, like we have always planned to do,” said Rhaena.

Baela sighed, deeply. “You are sweet, Rhae, but I will never fly with another dragon. I could never fly with another dragon. Moondancer was my one and only, and she was one of a kind. There is no replacing her, not with _any_  dragon in the world, and there could never be a Moondancer reborn. Our bond was sealed with love from the moment we took that first flight together, and it was finally sealed with blood as I watched her die in front of me.”

Would Morning be Rhaena’s one and only? She was torn between thinking that it would be dismaying, and believing that it would be reassuring, to have only  _one_  dragon that was truly  _meant_  for her, one dragon that was her soulmate in the sky.

Her sister was definitely right about one thing. Rhaena  _did_ know after all, and knew it without a doubt, when the time was right, when the time was right to finally take flight on the back of her dragon. Morning did not need any coaxing or encouragement at all, when the time came. Indeed, it seemed like _she_  was the one beckoning and summoning Rhaena to the sky.

Spring was the season of hope, and the season of rebirth. She was reborn as Rhaena the dragonrider, and she meant to be a beacon of hope to all those who had been burdened and weighed down by hopelessness and despair for far too long.   


End file.
